


Precedent

by formeldehyde



Series: tetra heart [2]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Anorexia, Child Abuse, Delusion induced disordered eating technically, Delusions, Disordered Eating, Fae & Fairies, Gore, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Psychosis, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Harm, Sexual Abuse, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 15:03:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15173267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/formeldehyde/pseuds/formeldehyde
Summary: Before Josh and Tyler ran, before Tyler remembered. This is how it all started.





	1. Vulture

it's spring. the light is starting to burn through the gaps in the leaves, pouring into heavenly spotlights on the ground. mornings are misty and fogged, an uneasy chill runs through the breeze.   
he's shaking and he doesn't know why. his hands jitter and his heart beats are all he can hear echoing in his ears.   
rain comes down heavy. dark clouds bring heaviness into tyler's heart. the almost freeze as evening nears bites harshly at his skin paled from the winter he barely survived.   
the urges have not faded yet. isolation in ice has left his heart cold and his thoughts hyper concentrated on the loneliness impossible to avoid. artificial light is nothing-the only true life in those beams that break through fallen branches.   
the distortion of his image screams back at him and no amount of water splashed from the sink to his face will silence it.  
the mask of his personality is clouding his vision. the attempt of appearing okay is exhausting his mind. fake smiles stitch into his lips and wrists. hiding flinches from fear and sharp pains throbbing from beneath his blood stained sweatshirt.  
the days seem strenuous. the number of sunrises he's seen is too many. the amount of steps and breaths is overwhelming. the sheer vastness of the seasons and the years hang heavy on hunched shoulders. the deaths of every day, the births, the meaningless of it all-the repetition. it aches and breaks his will to keep breathing.   
guilt of these thoughts trap him in an empty desert, brain burning from sahara sun though his skin shakes in early april flurries. cigarettes hold him onto the cold and the wet snow coming down on him. the white flakes meld with the smoke. he is spineless, his cowardice chokes him. the bruises on his hips render him silent. and that guilt of nihilism is stuck beneath his tongue. honey is dripping from his teeth and he can't speak.  
all he can do is bleed. from her hand or from his. from nails and wandering hands or from fists and blades.   
josh is there in all. staring with scared deer eyes, watching in shock and fear as tyler tears himself apart. desperately trying to pull tyler's hands from around his own throat. unable to let him steal his life, though tyler feels like he is living as a ghost. walls are paper thin and no one can hear him for he is not speaking.   
the candy sweet kisses can only mend so many bruises.   
and what the sugar can't reach- she will. french tips take down tyler's stomach- churning beneath the surface.   
and as tears burn hot in his eyes, it's over. the vultures have ate away at his body and he is nothing but a carcass. he's already dead.


	2. Blackest Night

he can't get up. he can't drag his brittle body off where she left him. he's chained to this spot, she left his corpse on his baby blue comforter.   
as deer breed and life bleeds slowly back into the woods, his body is rotting into the boards of his house.   
he can't get up and the starvation of his body is painting his vision black.   
it's spring but there's icicles hanging from his window. winds carrying snow shake the walls of his bedroom and it's getting colder. he can't bare the thought of getting older. his heart is so broken he's praying for it to snap.   
it never does. tyler drifts in and out of consciousness, swimming between nightmares of talons and teeth. there are only brief glimpses of the boy he loves.   
he's falling into a dark sea now. the sun has set and the snow is coming down. his limbs are still anchored in place and his breathing is labored. the uncertainty of the weather with its warmth then chill, pulls his head through choppy waves leading him here.  
there's birds of prey circling him. beady eyes watching him as the walls of his room, the glow in the dark stars on his ceiling, all come crumbling down on him.

\--

a knock on the door pulls his head out of heavy snow. a sliver of light from the hallway cuts into the dark space. tyler's sun starved skin soaks it up desperately, pulling towards it. a gasp can be heard but its source is muddy. all that can be seen is the dark silhouette, framed by red curly wisps.   
then there's hands. hands hands that touch gently but unlike those hands hands that touch where they shouldn't. these hands are caring, these hands are concerned and conscious of where they touch. these hands carry him, tyler only feels the thumping of steps until he is placed in a world of warmth and light that he does not deserve.   
there's fairy lights twinkling and walls covered with posters and messy acrylic figures. he is wrapped in fluffy pink blankets and yet he shakes. his eyes flutter open, now seeing the boy in front of him. josh. in a rose hoodie and shorts, eyes wide with fear.   
"w-what happened t-ty?"  
"i-vultures...they-she wouldn't stop-"  
"just sleep okay? j-just sleep i'm here it's gonna be okay."  
"thank you josh," it's muffled between the blankets but then the words are lost to a cold sea of sleep.  
dreams bring zack, maddy, and jay. he dreams of the first night of last summer. fireflies are pouring from the woods and the unlit gravel road pulls the car like a current. one wrong move, there is nothing but chaos and everything around tyler goes black. he wakes to the smell of smoke and blood dripping down his face, an ache in his jaw and neck. "everyone get out!" he didn't say that but he heard it slip through his split lips. trees encase tyler and the car, flames spreading from the front and catching on the sun dried trees and foliage. theres metal everywhere and tyler feels his entire body try to force itself out his throat, vomit the fear and panic he feels but theres nothing in his empty stomach. barely seventeen blacked out, he hears only the faint sound of voices and yelling before red and blue lights smear over the blackest road, on the blackest night. flashlights check his pupils but his limbs are limp, no he hasn't been drinking and no he doesn't remember what happened. the burns on his siblings were bad, maddy's covered her whole eye and cheek, zack's covering his left side up his arm, jay's legs. apart from the gushing of his lip and nose, tyler is unscathed. it's all his fault. he could've killed them. he didn't even try to help them. 

shell of the man he never was, bones jittering and his stomach permanently nauseous from unending guilt, the weight dropped off his body as his mother's gaze on him turned venomous. he was no longer a son. he was the kid who almost killed three of her children. he was a problem. the smell of fire never quite left his nose, the feeling of the collision jostled him forward every minute or so. there was no relief, there was nothing. white lines, full flasks, and menthols did all they could. he should have died, tyler lived undead now. on that line between what could have happened and what did. he survived but he just wished he had burnt. now the fire had died inside him, leaving smoke in his nose and ice in his heart. 

when he woke, josh felt like an intruder. every touch against tyler's blue black bruised skin felt wrong. josh's sweetness made tyler's teeth and jaw ache and he could feel the airbag smack him in the face and he could see mutilated bubbled flesh and maddy's swollen blind eye. hear jay's screams of agony, taste blood on his tongue. 

he needs to leave, he needs to go. josh's eyes hurt they hurt his skin he cant breathe josh needs to stop looking at him like that like he's not a murderer like he didn't permanently scar his families' bodies and minds. like he isn't a black hole, devouring and destroying everything he touches. 

tyler's running out of the door as fast as he possibly can, he runs until he can't feel his legs and his lungs burn, josh's cries faded behind the city streets. he runs until his feet meet the tracks, and he wanders until the sun comes up. dead or alive, he can't love.


	3. Autumn Leaves

when he makes it to the tracks, it's months prior in his mind. he's stuck in that summer dread that bred thick scars and bandaid shortages. he's stuck in too hot, nervous sweat and shivers. that summer was the hottest on record and every degree it rose felt like engine fire and smelled like burning rubber and skin.

he only came out at night. when kelly had finally gone into her cage for the night, when he wouldn't be met with the vengeful eyes of his brother. he crept out his window, he let his mind fall victim to whatever was happening in his head. it was something biblical, everything that happened after this he believed he deserved. if the damage from what he had done would only show itself on brain scans and psych evaluations then at least it was something. he deserved to burn, and he didn't. 

it took weeks of slow, world shattering nightmares and glitches in his reality - did i turn the light on? i did not turn the light on. did you see that? right there?- you can't hear that? it sounds like bells it's coming from the woods. he had heard all those things before and by mid july it happened and he remembered. 

he saw streams of light buzzing from the forest as he walked to josh's one night. he followed them thorough the trees and the voice in his head was clear on that these were the fae that had raised him all those years ago. that had gone absent since religion was forced down his throat and his ears beginning to ring with the sound of kelly's psalms. 

he wandered for hours, too lost in things not there to realize the missed calls and texts on the phone he only really used to talk to josh. he wandered until sunrise, and then there was no going back. he could hear the songs of ancient magics and old gods, feel the thumping of the earth's heart beneath his feet, he saw in a glimpse the eyes of a young boy he once loved. sprites and faeries, pixies and brownies alike, all danced in new summer sun and tyler found a smile finally spread over his sullen mask. he was home. 

 

but home is a feeling, not a place. so when he eventually found himself back at his house, that feeling had begun to waver. bells now sounding like shrieking banshees, the hum of the planet more of a buzzing angelic radio frequency he couldn't decipher. his brain was fuzzy and buzzing with waves as he stumbled upstairs, cringing as he crossed paths with zack who mumbled "freak" under his breath. 

 

it didn't hurt, that kind of thing stopped hurting around fourth grade when the kids in his class would ask him about the bruises, or about his stutter and the way he only talked to himself. the disconnection from his peers never bothered him, he had brendon. the beautiful big eyed boy who sat at the back of class, who held his head down too, who ate alone too. not a word was spoken between them at school because that brendon was a parasite; the changeling that took the real boy's place. the real brendon lived in the realm of light and magic. tyler clung to him like a safety blanket, he didn't care about anyone or anything at school because he did have a friend when he was growing up. he had love.

that love faded and died. tyler had been blind, vision numb until that crash. it brought back childhood delusions and false memories. it kept him in a long autumn of spiderweb tree shadows and crisp winds giving his bony frame goosebumps. the leaves were always dying, his vision full of fire; of reds and oranges burnt together on crisp leaves and during campfires. there was heat there, but it was soaked in new icy winds. seeing flame, feeling snow. he lived as that, cold blooded and red-eyed. smoke puffing out between his lips to loose himself in the feeling of first frost. he lived in sliced skin that has left his arms a bloody, marred battlefield. 

his mom says he has the devil inside him. she makes false crosses over her body in swift hand motions, facing the cross on the wall in her room. her knees planted on the ground. roots of anger knotted around her calves, anchored in prayer. tyler can hear her repeated pleas as he passes her door, he feels cold.

this evil she sees in him, he can't ignore. he feels like he is dripping in the sins of his past, like there's bloodthirsty hell hounds breeding inside him. purity comes later, in his own blood and the frequencies coming from purgatory yet to be seen.

the first time he feels the devil leaving him and draining his heart of impurity, the first time he feels clean, it had been a few weeks since the crash. the hospital had become home as his siblings sat through burn treatment and skin grafting. he went home with kelly after a long day of waiting, she passed out drunk on the couch by 10. by 11 tyler found a new high.

three cigarettes, a joint, and half a water bottle of vodka deep-he jostles a blade from the box cutter in the junk drawer in the bathroom. the fag hanging from between his lips, smoke dancing around the room as he rushed around in desperation. he settled on the bed, cig quickly snuffed out on the top of his hand. the flinch nearly making him drop the blade, but he was gripping it so hard small droplets of blood formed on his palm.

his vision was fuzzy from crossfade and starvation. his skin felt like it was crawling and burning. everything was hot and he felt like he was trapped in that car. he grabbed a piece of scrap metal from the crash and dug it so far into his arm, the shock of the pain was all the distraction needed to find time to slice thick into what meat was left on tyler's spindly arm.

his vision went black and he woke up ten hours later with a pounding headache and a stomach spitting up vodka and bile. even then, as he gazed at his arm, coated in sticky dried blood, the sheets and his sleeve dark red. the large gaping wound felt good. the shower felt like bee stings but the water drained red and if felt like he was washing away himself. like he could take parts of himself without taking it all-not yet. he could die here he just couldn't because then she would win. he couldn't do it because of josh.


	4. higher when i'm heavy

josh liked to do a lot of the things tyler did. he drank until he blushed hot red, smoked unil his eyes matched his hair. he and tyler would steal cheap liquor from josh's sister and go sit on the curb down the road near the graveyard. tyler liked the disconnection, the numbness. josh liked the burning, how it made everything blur together into sensations. he liked what it made him feel, tyler liked the feelings it made him forget.   
      together, start of highschool, they'd drink on early autumn nights. walk through the cemetery, and to the gas station for cigs and papers that they wouldn't get carded for. they'd roll a joint and sit on josh's bed.   
       "joshiee," tyler would sing with a crooked toothed smile.   
        "yeah, ty?" it's so clear in tyler's memory. josh in tyler's hoodie, heart boxers and bright red hair. the perfect valentine, josh was love. his voice was caramel chocolate candies delivered on a february morning. his freckles still dark from the summer and cheeks hot from whiskey.  
       tyler moved closer, and said in almost a whisper, "you won't leave me right?"  
josh's wide teddy bear eyes teared up at that. he quickly tapped out the joint and they laid on the bed together. tyler nuzzled into his chest like a small child, terrified of the dark, plagued with nightmares. that's who he was. and when josh kissed his hand and promised he would never leave, tyler giggled and hugged josh tight. like if he loosened his grip he'd realize that josh, too, wasn't real.   
after josh became the light of tyler's life, the source of his relief and happiness. the dreams came. every time tyler closed his eyes all he saw was josh, stomach shot and bleeding. on his knees, crying. "how could you do this to me? how could you do this to me?" his voice wasn't his own. when he finally collapsed, tyler found his hands bloody. "you said you'd never leave."  
-  
"ty, what's up with you?" josh asked from the ground.   
from the top branch of a golden leafed oak, tyler said nothing. he looked out on the church behind them and the grave stones littering the dying grass. he was scared. death as it was right now seemed so close, echoes of brendon's screams were ringing through the cold breeze. vultures and crows sang and tyler felt dizzy. his shaven head was cold and as he fell, he saw nothing but the dreary sky above him.   
he woke in the emergency room, his mom glaring at him from the far corner where she was talking with the doctor. josh was asleep on the chair right next to him, squishing his cheek with his palm and snoring softly.   
"josh," he whispered. "josh."  
"huh," the boy sounded groggy. "tyler? ty! you're awake!"  
       "what happened?"  
       "you don't eat that's what happened," kelly said from the corner with a sneer. she looked annoyed, the way her jaw was set said it. her phone was opened in her hand, he interrupted her at work surely that would not play over well later. he felt nauseous, he looked around at the drip and heart monitor and it all felt wrong.   
the doctor's face recoiled uncomfortably, "how are you feeling, sweet heart." she was kind, tyler saw it in her eyes and in the dimpled smile she gave, she smelled like cucumber and melon and her hair was a sea of tight curls that were falling over her face.   
"i'm okay." he smiled for her when he felt like wolves were eating away at his ribs, gnawing on the runes bones and forcing him to think about how the I.V was pumping lard into his veins- unholy human food into him. His stomach aches, his face flinches and the doctor looks concerned, her thick eyebrows scrunching together.  
"i'm sorry to say but all signs say malnourishment. thinning hair, extra hair on the body, decaying teeth, not to mention why you're here in the first place. tyler, you're severely dehydrated and nearly underweight."   
       "i feed him," kelly cut in abruptly. "i do not neglect my children, he's just going through a phase of not eating. he'll be fine." she said out loud, but never actually meeting the other woman's eyes. the devil does not apologize nor think of its own consequences. she would never believe anything that paints her in a bad light despite the blood on her hands. tyler couldn't help but begin rubbing at the skin on his neck, as if he were feeling a noose not yet there. kelly joseph doesn't neglect her children. kelly joseph doesn't neglect her children. those words kept ringing and pounding tyler's brain, she can lie without even flinching. she can destroy his heart and body with talons and torture but here she is upstanding. he's angry. he's blind red rage and all he sees now is her, the devil who knows no repercussions. the fallen angel who needs to be smitten by holy fair hands.   
      the only thing tyler is running on is vitamins, a water supply, and a lovely but annoyingly small dose of morphine for his head most likely. he doesn't need any of it.   
       "i would like tyler to see an eating disorder specialist once a week to discuss his issues. i would also recommend a regular psychiatrist multiple times a week." she said this, looking at her clipboard, avoiding the gaze of anyone in the room, nervous of her own words.   
       "why the hell do i need to do that?" kelly snapped. tyler heard the buzzing of the lights and this fire was burning too bright. he needed to leave. he needed to get out of here before he left in a straight jacket.  
      "mrs.joseph, can i speak to you in private, please." now the woman's dark green eyes met ice in kelly's gaze, unforgiving.  
      "i'm not going anywhere. you're going to tell all of us here why you think something like that is necessary for a boy doing a stupid hunger strike because he's pissed about something."  
      "mrs.joseph! that is horribly inappropriate to say given the circumstances." tyler read her name, emma, and he was scared of the potential this first year doctor was about to have on his life.  
      "and what exactly are the circumstances?"  
      "these are advanced signs of disordered eating, having lasted over 6 months to a year. not to mention, when you," she gestured to josh, "brought tyler here, we noticed some things."  
       no. no. no. this was not happening to him right now, not with his new marks so beautiful. not with three school bathroom panic attacks leaving his legs unable to move from the pressure of his fists pummeling what flesh he had left. his knuckles were still bruised, so was his entire body not to mention the cig burns lining his forearm. he wrapped the blanket tightly around himself, hiding the evidence impossible to deny. it was getting hotter and hotter in this frozen hospice, he heard the cries of children and of those in pain, those in love and those dead. he couldn't be here. josh was looking at him with those eyes, his mom was glaring at him like she was about to rip his throat out, the doctor was mumbling about bruises and self mutilation. the moment it comes out of her mouth, tyler rips the I.V out of his arm, stumbling as he stands and runs for the window, open for the fresh air.   
      he's halfway out the window when he feels a hand on the back of his leg. two, actually. josh on the left and the doctor on the right. he was thrown back inside and then security came to give him a bed with constraints. locking his limbs with thick brown leather. the doctor leaves him with an officer and a nurse to assess his outburst.   
      24 hour suicide watch.   
      the time starts, josh is the last person he sees before emma shuts the door to the new wasteland. no window, tv stuck on an infomercial, there was nothing but a bed and a couch. it felt like a cell, it was. he wasn't bound anymore and they left him with books and music tapes from decades ago. he listened to them all.   
     in the dark room, the tape player echoed and tyler felt his brain begin to spill over itself. there was a plate of food sitting next to the bed. there was a camera. there was a bathroom. easy. he ate a little, hid a lot, it all ended up down the toilet. plate cleared and stomach empty in a clean way, he felt the effects of the past hours. the way kelly looked at him, the way that revealed the devil inside her. the window and how no one listened to him when he asked if they could hear the thunderstorms outside.  
     he could smell when morning came. it was a green tea breeze of light and rain and he wanted to break these walls down with his hands. he couldn't see the sunrise and it felt like he was being starved, which he was. eating was not something tyler had ever been good at, texture was too much, the way it slid down his throat made him gag, the uncomfortable heaviness it left in his gut, the heaviness of flesh it left on his legs and stomach when he was young and felt inhuman. he still did.   
       so he stopped eating, kelly didn't notice, no one cared. he felt better empty, he felt clear headed. a few nurses office visits made him realize he had to eat something to avoid conflict. when the faeries offered him berries and fruits, he ate it without thought and it didn't feel like kelly's frozen dinners. it was the earth, sweet and dripping down his lips. he ate fruit and it kept him alive. the bullying of his gangly form never bothered him, he was clean and they smelled like grease to him. they all were so engrained in themselves, in shouting the loudest, running the fastest, eating the most, they were sin and they were the most innocent of all humans.   
tyler felt disconnected early, like he couldn't possibly belong to a species like this, he learned he wasn't soon when faerie songs infected his skull like a parasite that feeds not on stomach contents and flesh, but on light and flowers that bloom in his stomach full of strawberry seeds.   
he learns to love other foods, with josh. josh liked sugar, he liked ice cream and marshmallows and candy. it was all artificial and it made tyler's stomach upset but he learned to love it because josh did. the first time they dyed his hair, tyler couldn't think of any color besides pink. bubblegum, strawberry, cotton candy pink.   
tyler comes back to his body and to the present with a quick gasp, his senses flooded with that smell of warm sugar but it's cut off by bleach.   
23 hours, 16 minutes left. he feels like he's going to die here.


	5. watch it

the hospital made him feel like a slab of meat. they assessed him, talked to him like he was a child and made him ton take pills. he put them under his tongue and into the pillow mattress after that. he tried to sleep, but he felts and storms bringing apocalyptic chaos. prison had him far from windows but his skin was buzzing the way it does when he stands in an open field as it rains. he can hear the thunder drums of the elves, their distant thumping from the forests. they're calling him and he is trapped.   
the paranoia sets in after an hour. the camera is moving as tyler does, they're watching his every move. it's like a single eye, glowing around the rim in the dark corner of the room. laying on the bed, he covered himself with blankets and hid from the predatory gaze of the eye.   
in sleepless darkness, with many hours of isolation ahead of him, tyler burst into fruitless tears. fearful cries for what was happening to his mind, what they would do to his body. they'd lock him up, they think he's insane, everyone has always thought he was. josh made him feel normal. he wasn't sure what that meant anymore. he wasn't sure if he knew what anything meant. he had never truly seen clearly, he had never been kept so far away from sunlight, from josh.   
      the eye was testing him now, tyler felt it taunting the way he could do nothing to cope with his overwhelming panic. claustrophobic and sobbing, he falls on the ground in front of it as if giving up.   
       a nurse comes in, he explains no further than "i'm so alone here." she is kind, she gives him the remote to the tv on the wall with the camera. tyler didn't watch tv, he hated everything about it. but he had to distract himself if he wanted to get out of here alive, or at least get out here and avoid being locked up for life. he watched a horror movie, cartoons, the news briefly but it was overwhelming. he slammed it off and felt numb.   
       9 hours 37 minutes left, he counts as he checks the clock. each tick sounds like a scream and he feels himself slipping. walls are closing in rapidly, he tries to ignore how it feels like cell bars pressing against his skin. how he feels like his skin is being bruised with cold iron, rotting faerie flesh with rust and metal. it's so cold his bones ache as he tries to wrap the thin blanket around his body. he imagines the fabric as josh's arms, holding him and keeping him warm. but he's not there. he's outside. the world beyond these walls is being wiped from his memory, he can't seem to remember how the air feels moving against him, or the street names that take him back to josh.   
there's only these four walls and the labyrinth beyond. the clock is screaming, bullet shots ringing in his ears and nothing can distract him from the way his vision shatters like glass. he says the words to himself like a prayer, "this isn't real." he says it so much the words are bloody and there's no meaning to them after the second hour of being lost in a hallucination of nightmare. the corners came alive with the demons of night, claws dripping venom and fangs ripping at the foot of the hospital bed.   
when he woke up, he didn't remember falling asleep. 10 hours left of suicide watch and he pondered the accuracy of the name. suicide? not here. not now. watch? with the feeling of eyes on his skin and bugs in his brain, being watched didn't cover it. he felt stalked like a defenseless rabbit as it's preyed on by a wild dog with gnashing teeth and pure power.   
his heart couldn't quit and his brain hadn't been distracted with booze or a blunt in so long he felt his grip wavering. he teetered on the cliff, between clashing waves and solid ground.   
on one side, the ocean calls upon him. it glows like a beacon, shining gold and blue, swimming with the fae of the deep. it's dark past the coast, the facade of contradicting black edges of cold waters. it's beautiful and holy, chaos and life with no hand of man beyond the top of the waves. angels with heads of fish and eyes of eagles, wings fluid in their motion through black abyss, bioluminescence brighter than the animals of earth. their songs transcend the weight of the water and he can hear them. they're gurgled but no less beautiful as they spill on the beach.   
the uneven ground beneath his feet began burning as his brain tried to remember what it felt like to walk without weak knees and blurred vision.   
on the cliff's edge, the sky curves far beyond the sea. the woods led him to this. to the end of the world. and on the top of those rocks, between realities, he obeys the instinct and lets his body fall to the ocean.   
he wakes up drenched in sweat and it smells like salt water. his eyes rush to the clock in a room refocused.   
5 hours left.   
he felt like his skull was filled with water and it had frozen every nerve in his body. he laid in agony for what felt like hours, drifting in and out of water. a woman came in. she wasn't a nurse, she was wearing a tight fitting pantsuit and had her hair in a high bun. her glasses made her eyes beady, and her teeth looked sharp when he gave him a smile.   
     "how are you feeling?" her voice was too chipper and it made him nauseous.  
      tyler looked up at her and remembered that he had to be okay. "i'm good, i've been...reflecting."  
      "that's great, tyler. what kind of things have you been reflecting on?"  
      reality. death. fear. "life. my family. what's important to me."   
      "and what's important?"  
      truth. vision. josh. "faith...my family and friends." he didn't like lying.  
      she wrote something on the clipboard in her hands. "where do you see yourself in five years?"  
     dead. "college, hopefully." he forced a smile, and through gritted teeth added, "this has been a wake up call for me. i need to focus on what's really important and make sure i take care of myself."  
      she left after an uncomfortably long hand shake and a grin.   
      four hours forty nine minutes.   
      he would get out. he just had to distract. had to make the time go by without getting lost again. tv was mindless and it felt dirty but he forced himself to watch a movie. and another. letting his mind fall into the characters until there was a heavenly knock on his door. she brought the last test, lunch. he ate it with fake enthusiasm.   
        he was let out after, a clean bill of health and sent on his way.


	6. home

he saw wolves dancing and playing in the meadow. snow drifting through the breeze, red stained from deer ripped by fangs. winter is unforgiving. the wolves stalk his house, just at the beginning of the woods. it's not him they want but the hunger in their eyes makes him feel like he's looking in a mirror.   
they want blood. they want kelly dead and the slush covered pavement of the driveway stained from the wounds. the streets to echo with her gurgled cries as sharp teeth hold her by the throat before ripping it out, devouring it whole. "i do not neglect my children." she had said. she lied and deserved no voice because she stole his from him before he even had one.   
sharpening his teeth by himself was a long and painful process that he remembers none of. when he finished, his smile scared him and he hoped to ware off vultures rather than crows.  
walking back into the hollow of his bedroom, he felt his knees buckle onto the floor. his collapsed body shook with the cold of the dead space, tears burning at his throat as it choked for air.   
the air had been the best of this all. the feeling of the wind on his skin as he walked out of the automatic hospital doors had been nearly overwhelming. his eyes watered and it hadn't been long but he feared he'd never feel this again and he wanted to run. he wanted to sprint as far as he could for as long as he could until he could let sleep take him somewhere far into the woods. he couldn't, he was chained with heavy metal to kelly's wrist as she drug him to the car. back to the house.   
the house felt cold. the kitchen gave kelly the ability to say things unquestioned, she screamed at him as she drank the entirety of the wine she picked up on the way home. "you will take care of yourself and nothing like this will ever happen again! do you know how embarrassing that was for me?" he drowned her out.   
by the time he finally closed his door and locked it, everything came crashing. he ran to his bathroom, vomiting from the stomachache of processed hospital food. in shaking heavy headedness, he scrambled through his bedside drawer before digging the blade deep into his skin, ripping the skin around the i.v.   
he felt the frenzy burning hot, mania flaming as his brain screams to cut, drink, smoke-god, did he need a smoke. he didn't care about the bloody mess of his arm dripping over the carpet as he grabbed his pack from under his pillow. in the pack, half a blunt, beneath the bed, jack daniel's. it was all routine as he climbed out the window. he couldn't do this here, he couldn't be here, his feet were buzzing with that ever needy urge to run.  
he does, passing cookie cutter homes and churches, he runs until he reaches the graveyard where he and josh would spend hours. he found his spot under the very tree he had fell from, curling in at the large stump.   
the air was still warm but he felt cold and he felt empty. his body didn't feel his own and whatever was inside wasn't much better as it howled through abandoned rooms in his mind.  
he wanted josh, he was scared of josh. he wanted a lot of things he feared. he feared the only thing he loved. josh was horrifying in his uneasy feet and red tinted cheeks. he was gorgeous in his tears, nauseating in scars. tyler feared his loss and, knowing it inevitable, sees josh's death every time they lock eyes.   
it's always different but the blood stains are only ever on tyler's palms.  
      there's animals in the dreams, sharpened claws and fangs ready to scavenge over josh's corpse. they urge him on through angel radio wave signals, he knows he will always tear into josh so savagely, so recklessly, and in such hunger, that there will be nothing of josh after. only skeleton bones are left on the forest floor, but the animals don't hunger. the insects will make home in the hollows of josh's remains, the dirt and earth will pull what is left of him back into it. it will be turned to mineral and salt to feed a new life.   
      no matter what way the dreams happen, at the end tyler will feel a flicker of pain in his chest. his steps will falter as he clatters to the ground. he always takes the bone of josh's left ring finger.


	7. halo of halogen

falling in love with josh was never a conscious effort, it felt like breathing or blinking which were difficult when panic or numbness settled in his bones. loving josh never fizzled or faded. it was as sure as the rise and fall of the wide sun eye of god when it kisses the horizon as it wakes and once more before it sleeps.   
      josh is a hot mess, school days were blurry and marked only by the tugs on tyler's heart as he watches josh fumble with books and papers. he makes tyler laugh. he always did. he saw through masks, into the brain beneath empty eyes. he would tell tyler all the petty dramas between their peers like they were characters in a tv series. he was almost as disconnected from them as tyler was. josh had few friends beside tyler, mark and michael. tyler apparently had met them before but as they sat down at their table, their faces looked new, completely unfamiliar. why would josh lie?  
he said nothing as he stared at the ground, holding onto josh's hand under the table like a vice. the indistinct chatter of voices and screams were making his head pound with holy earthquakes sending a tsunami of tears into his throat, catching and choking him in panic. he couldn't breathe. he yanked his hand from josh's and ran to the bathrooms, curling in the farthest stall and trying to make the world still again. he couldn't with the lights. the fluorescent, nauseating false sunlight casting a sacrilegious halogen halo down on his skull. his bones begin to crawl with spiders that appear out of cracks in exposed water pipes. they're breeding under his skin and he can feel them crawling, soaking his muscles in their venom. as it courses through his veins it's hot, he's clawing with blunt nails at his skin and as the pain turns excruciating as the halo begins burning his scalp and searing his skin.   
he hears the door swing open and slam the tiled wall. josh is on him in seconds, locking the door and squeezing onto the floor. "hey, hey, it's okay. what's going on?"  
"it was too loud, i-god it burns," tyler's crying and he is clawing on his hair like he wants to rip it from his scalp. "i need this off off,"  
"lets shave it then."  
"huh?" tyler turned to him with glassy eyes and red flushed cheeks.  
"cmon, let's skip. it's lunch it's the easiest time to leave." josh stood up and extended his hand. tyler took it and fell onto josh, head dizzy.   
josh held onto him, all the way through the cafeteria and out the back doors.   
that day josh shaved his head. gently and evenly, with precision. with every chunk of hair he felt the dirty brand of false pious fire fade. the fake halo wiped from head.  
"why did you want to do this?"  
"i just felt dirty...i don't know how to describe it." tyler trailed off into a mumble, picking at the bottom of his sleeve.   
"it's okay. i get it." josh smiled at him in the mirror, letting his head rest on tyler's shoulder. "it's done."  
the buzz of the razor ceased and tyler looked up, he ran his hand over the soft hair and smiled. "thanks joshie." they pulled apart and reconnected in a kiss, tyler had felt so light then. in josh's bathroom lit with red christmas lights and candles. in the softness from the snow sticking to the windows.   
even in the coldest of months then, josh was as warm as august heat waves. december had no power over his jupiter eyes, over honey lips.   
falling in love with josh came as natural as the urge to bask in sunlight, it's there as a child in fields of long grass, it's there as you feel the hotness of its rays for the last time-unknowing to its finality. every first sunny day feels the way josh tastes. ripe fruit and candy. to love him is to breathe in honeysuckle air and out campfire ash.   
then, there, in that dirty high school bathroom, tyler thought he would never love anyone like this. he thought he would never forget josh.


	8. let the rain come

tyler walked home with josh that day, hand in hand as they shared the already half burnt menthol that'd been sitting in the bottom of the pack for days. the streets were familiar and calm and the sky was a mess of cloud made of angel tears. thunderstorms would soon come and cleanse the land, reaping souls and flooding the forests with blood.   
\-----  
josh's room was silent apart from the drops beating down on the roof and the soft sighs escaping his lips. he was wrapped in his sheets, wrapped in his boyfriend and the heat of their bodies tangled together. "ty," he said.

"yeah baby?" tyler asked, pulling their kiss apart. 

"what happens when it's too much?" josh took his finger and began tracing the lines of tyler's face, down his cheek and across his jaw. their eyes locked together with the chains of fallen angels bound to the earth when their heart sings for the heavens.

"i don't know... it's stuff i don't like, its fake and i feel like a number." he sighed, "josh, you're old tea leaves and cotton candy and i understand you, when there's too many people who have nothing in them, it's scary. i feel like I'm in a graveyard where everyone's alive. i only understand stuff near death, or love i guess."  
"i'm not dead." he wasn't. josh was haunted cherry blossom trees, he was in a heaven and that was a kind of other life. not necessarily a death though, just a continuation. josh was that purgatory between the empty lives of others tyler doesn't understand, and his own life where death spoke to him in dreams and the lives he lived before haunt him like premonitions of the past. 

"but i love you." and he did. he loved this bit of life in a realm of nothing but undead brains and devils outside his bedroom door. he always loved early autumns with josh. the orange leaves and bare trees always sing nostalgia of the early days. memories of middle school afternoons where tyler was realizing that he was in love with the boy down the street who played his drums so loud tyler could hear it if he left his window open, letting that cold september air leak in. tyler doesn't hear him play much anymore, his head is getting louder, he can't quite focus. that's why he keeps josh within arms reach. "i hope you don't mind."

josh smiled. 

-

tyler woke up, face tucked into josh's neck, fairy lights swallowing josh's room in a deep pink glow. the rain had let up and josh put on some record, the smiths if tyler had to guess. "joshie," he whispered, pressing a kiss to the other boy's pale cheek.

josh mumbled, unmoving. tyler smiled, josh was the cutest napper. tyler was jealous of the way he could sleep through anything, how he slept everywhere. he'd sleep for days if no one woke him up, undisturbed by nightmares. josh didn't always sleep through the night though, his anxieties kept him up and it was more frequent than he'd admit. most of the time tyler'd hear his phone buzzing next to his bed around one in the morning on sunday nights. josh'd ask how he was, tyler could hear that josh'd been crying. they'd walk through the dark streets, smoke and be with each other. tyler'd ramble, josh would listen. josh would worry, tyler would make him smile. josh would pass out as soon as he climbed back into his window onto his mattress. tyler'd go home, usually staying up to watch the sunrise. listen to the birds that made their homes in the branches of the willow tree in josh's front yard as they woke and announced themselves to the sun. tyler would hum with them, those first orange rays always striking a deep ache in his chest, the same one he felt when josh's lips met his. he'd smile and get dressed, walk to josh's door, go with him to school. it was the most natural thing in the world, being with him. tyler couldn't see his life without josh. he wouldn't let himself imagine. he'd die before he lived a day beyond joshua william dun. 

"joshuaa!" tyler whined, sitting up, placing his hands on josh's chest. tickling him right underneath his ribs, forcing him awake. 

"what, babe?" he asked, still catching his breath from laughing. 

"let's go on a walk, i wanna show you something."

"it's cold."

"not really! you can bring a blanket... josh c'mon i need a smoke."

it took them awhile, slowly getting dressed in beanies and layers of hoodies. fall was tolerable during the day but ohio nights were always frostbitten and harsh.   
josh fell back asleep on the kitchen table while tyler made coffee. his heart always surged when he saw josh sleeping but he woke him with the sound of his mug slamming onto the table and a cheeky grin, "let's go."

the streets were dark and mirror puddles to other dimensions covered the pits in the road. tyler wasn't sure what time it was but it had to be late, the neighborhood was silent apart from a dull choir of voices coming from the treeline behind his house. he grabbed josh's hand and yanked him down the side of his yard. it was late and he knew his mother was probably asleep but as he ran passed the house he felt harpy eyes on him, his throat closing in fear. he held josh's hand like a vice until they reached the small path at the mouth of the forest.

tyler stopped for a second, spinning around to gaze at the sea of stars above him. how the light smeared like the galaxies were bleeding into earth's atmosphere. he felt a tug on his sleeve. 

"ty?"

he snapped his head back, "sorry."

"s'okay." josh smiled, pulling out two cigarettes and placing one between tyler's lips. "do you wanna keep going?"

as those last words echoed in tyler's ears, the disembodied choir began to call him deeper into the trees. he saw a few wisps dancing around the tree limbs, and he nodded. josh lit their cigs and gestured, "lead the way."

black as pitch, the tall trees cast shadows broken only by scattered moonlight and soft glowing of night sprites. tyler followed them, josh trailing behind him angrily mumbling that he forgot to bring a flashlight. 

once they reached the tree house, tyler felt his heart drop at the sight, he felt a icy pang of nostalgia for his youth. for josh and him who spent hours in their secluded fort. this was where he felt safe, far from the prying eyes in street lamps and clawed she-devils. this was where he learned about the shy boy from church and how his heart was bigger and his smile was brighter than the sun. 

"i can't believe this thing is still standing." he smiled and climbed up the ladder. it was creaky, damp from the rain. the grounds were unstable, shaking as they both sat down. 

     "ty look," josh said. he'd flicked open his lighter, tracing his fingers over an old carving in the tree trunk that grew through the fort.

      tyler squinted, seeing the faded shape of a badly drawn heart with the initials T + B in the center. he felt ice in his veins, flooding every muscle and keeping his limbs cemented into the damp floor of the treehouse.   
\-----  
"ty! hurry!" the voice of a ghost child, a vision of blinding honey light cutting through the leaves of summer oaks.   
     "coming!" he giggled, scrawny legs fumbling over the foliage and fallen branches. "where are we even goin', bren?"  
     with a flash of dark brown hair, the young boy turned to face him. wide brown eyes and a mischievous grin, as young and full of life as tyler remembered only in dreams. his heart was bursting with nostalgia of days spent in a realm of light and the children of the woods and hills.   
     "we're here!" he said, stopping at a small clearing in the overgrown ivy and brush. they climbed into a ruby red tree fort that was settled between the branches.   
     "how'd you find this place?" tyler asked, gazing out the hollow window and down to the path below.   
     "it's between where i am and where you are. we can be together here, no one'll know." he smiled and tyler reached out to hug him. he was met with nothing but his arms swinging out in front of him into glittering dust.   
\-----  
"ty?"  
he opened his eyes to glassy vision, blurry tears and the dark decrepit treehouse around him. his heart ached, like it was missing something. he looked at josh.   
"you okay?" he asked, hesitating before resting his hand on tyler's thigh.  
tyler flinched from the touch, josh tried pulling away but he moved to cover the boy's hand with his. "m'okay." the treehouse was dying and he couldn't remember the face of the boy in his visions. he looked to the etching in the bark. it answered nothing but an initial. B.


	9. trench

it's windy and it smells the wet earth on the trees. it's cold, not freezing. he's so close to the sun it's blinding. the sky is covered in flaming smog but it's cold.   
he's been in between frozen winter hell and smoldering love for years, but now he is climbing up the trench. dangling over that ocean of darkness, that abyss of pain. he's waded through these waters many times, nearing the shallow shorelines but never quite reaching them. dancing along the sea back and forth in a never ending march to freedom.  
josh was there, sitting along the coast, digging his toes into the sand and resting easy among the crashing waves. he was bathed in seaside sunshine and his hair was always an ever changing technicolor prism but his eyes stayed that divine brown.   
      tyler wanted him and he wanted to freely run across the beach with josh's hand in his. but he couldn't. he was still in an abyss and his feet were sinking deep into the mud caking the sea floor. he heard thunder claps like gunshots. fins circled in the water, dancing around him and he saw lights in the sky beckoning him up, not forward to josh but straight into the cosmos.  
how can you not get blind sighted by the suns in the fanged mouths of angels? how can you not be curious of the expansion of your own reality? he fell upwards, backwards and going deep underneath his own skin. the linearity of time begins to bend and tangle itself into knots of red string and amnesia.  
he fell into it headfirst and old memories of black hair and burning herbs came with the smell of smoke pouring into his nose. hope burnt to a crisp when he let himself ascend upwards into days soaked in daydreams and dissociation. his thoughts caught in clouds and ears rang with overbearing hymns of the fae that stole the boy he dreamed from his family as a child.   
he could feel the ever looming eyes of his mother, the venom stinging under his skin, the cuts and scabs like hollows on his flesh full of ice as scar tissue.   
here, he was painfully himself. here, he had nothing but these ghosts haunting him. here, he was utterly alone.  
\-----  
the days after the memory of his love, of the boy down the street who'd been swept away by nymphs and a human family slaughtered.   
flashbacks of bloody bodies, the smell of tequila wafting off gloss coated lips, the sound of angels in mourning. tyler left josh's house the morning after his fingers traced 'B', gave josh a kiss on the cheek and ran to cage himself in a fight with his own memories.   
where was he? where was his lost love, why did his heart burn and why could he smell that nauseating drink kept at the top of Kelly's liquor cabinet? what happened to the forest nymphs that cared for brendon, where did the portal go?


	10. december 2nd

the days of autumn passed in orange haze and bonfire lights. josh's tattered hoodies around tyler's shaking frame on those late night indulgences. wandering around honey streets, singing to the stars, blowing bubbles of smoke into the frigid air. his latest, emptiest nights were still plagued with nightmares of a face he couldn't recognize. the boy who's voice was beautiful, singing like a nymph through the trees haunted with neon pixies. his days, however, were still alive and breathing through tyler's love.   
      josh never asked him about the treehouse again, he just filed it away in the vault of things he shouldn't bring up.   
josh even managed to get tyler to hangout with his other friends, tyler felt normal for once in his life as they crammed on josh's bed and played video games. josh smiled at him wide from across the room, tyler met his eyes and all mundanity was swept away. his vision filled with roses that bloomed from josh's exposed stomach. his eyes were glittering and tyler dropped his remote as his ears filled with some choirs of siren songs. mark and mike both looked up at him but he was miles away.   
josh pulled him outside, they finished off the dwindling pack and he held josh's hand like he'd drift into the black of night if tyler let him go.  
-  
fall was still breathing her last breaths, coughing up dried leaves and cinnamon, but winter slammed heavy on her chest. breaking ribs and tearing limbs.   
     tyler fell out of josh's arms and under a lock and key of his mothers brandishing. isolation drove the grandiosity of his birthright into soaring heavens and fallen angels. faeries crying on his windowsill, bathtub full of blood, stomach empty.   
     end november, with an arctic heart and only slow melted memories of the warmth of josh's bed and smile, tyler was colder than the feet of snow banishing him to hell. ohio was blanketed in torn angel feathers raining down from the abyss of sky. it felt like ancient gods were crying as tyler fell into pits of vipers and rotten apple cores.   
      he'd lay awake at night, the ghost of himself laying thousands of feet above. drifting through the clouds in foggy high, head spinning into the cosmos and so far, far, from his seemingly dead corpse trying to fall asleep in his bedroom. the nausea of the astral realm gripping him with a hundred hands coming from the earth a hundred miles below.  
      he fell face first into flames and there was only the smell of burnt flesh and the agonized screams of damned souls. here, below the trench, in blackest pitch, he began to die.  
-  
      at midnight, on tyler's 18th birthday, his demon finally showed its face. long blonde hair, eyes of ice, a fake grin of a childhood of lies and torture. it's 3 am. kelly's poison ivy hands left his skin burning. his entire body was covered in the sin she'd wept on him. she told him keep quiet, but the scream of agony that slipped past his lips was compulsion. as his fists slammed against his legs, the pain was familiar. his hands ached as they hit his fragile bones, he needed different weaponry to rival this damage.   
      the glint of a metallic demon claw, a razor to drain the dirt from his veins. he stood in the middle of his room like a zombie. lifeless eyes glassed over with tears, hollow cheeks and heart. the first slice across his wrist went deep. made him flinch, not enough. anger bubbled in the hollow space between his skin. she took everything from him, he would never be able to love josh the way he deserved, there was no tyler joseph because he died the first time kelly did that to him. in tears, in rage, the blade tore his already scarred flesh into a mangled massacre of cherry stardust and shaking hands. there was so much now, his light limbs felt heavy with the venom pouring off them. it wasn't enough. with last remaining strengths and spotted vision, he wound the cord with snake's skin. the fangs of lucifer had sunk into his flesh, forced her and bound with paralysis. it's winding body choking out the last breath from his shriveled lungs.  
      he dangled above the earth, floating up into the clouds. there he could hear josh cry, feel his tears on the fabric of his shirt. but his mind was lost to swirling eternity and a warm orange light.


End file.
